NIB Funding outlook 2026
NIB marks its 50th anniversary this year, and while we’re not yet throwing a party, it’s worth pausing to appreciate how far we’ve come. From the days in 1977 when NIB’s first ever bond for USD 40mn with a coupon of 7.75% and a seven year maturity, was considered to be on “terms applicable to prime borrowers in favorable market conditions”, NIB Annual Report 1977, to today’s Sustainability-Linked Loans financing Bonds. Now, let’s talk about what’s next and what we’ve achieved.
For 2026, our funding plan remains broadly consistent with the previous year, targeting approximately EUR 8.5–9.5 billion. This figure is based on our minimum liquidity requirement, ensuring operational resilience even in the absence of capital market access. The actual amount may be adjusted during the year in response to market development.
What is the strategy? No big surprises: diversification across currencies, maturities and products to secure broad market access, uphold our sustainability commitments, and secure favorable funding costs remain in our focus.
“We like to think in three boxes: benchmark funding –this are USD and EUR benchmarks, Other public markets funding: larger bond issues in more local markets, like the Nordic currencies, British Pound or the antipodean currencies (AUD and NZD) and finally private placement funding, which contains a whole range of tailor-made bonds for single investors. Each of those three categories is expected to contribute 30 to 40 per cent to our overall funding. But we’re also able to think outside the box: our sustainable bond funding program will continue to grow in 2026 through NIB Environmental Bonds (NEB) and the newly established Sustainability-Linked Loans financing Bonds,” said Jens Hellerup, NIB Head of Funding
While it is notoriously difficult to plan the timing of issuance, the team aims to launch one of two planned USD benchmarks early in the year. Before the summer break, a NIB Environmental bond in EUR benchmark format is another box to tick on the bucket list. Typically, the British pound market sees strong activity at the start of the year, presenting another opportunity for NIB. By midsummer, we anticipate fulfilling about 60–80% of the funding plan, with a focus on the second USD benchmark bond after the summer break.
“So, in short, the funding plan will be – more benchmarks, more sustainability-oriented bonds, and maybe a few surprises along the way if market conditions play nice,” Hellerup said.
2025 highlights
2025 was anything but dull. Amid market swings and uncertainty, NIB added its own highlights to make the year memorable.
Most importantly, the NIB name continuous to attract robust interest, most visible in this year’s three-year USD global bond, for which the orderbook size covered the issuance amount more than four times.
“It is great we continue to see the support from our core investor base in benchmarks, mainly central bank and bank treasury investors. However, there is one development to highlight beyond our benchmark funding: the new and increased interest from Asian bank treasury investors. In 2025 this manifested itself more in smaller transactions, but we can see a trend for more interest in larger sized transactions,” Hellerup said.
In the area of sustainable finance, one milestone is volume. In 2025, the EUR 10 billion mark of NIB Environmental bonds issuance was passed.
“Obviously as funding officers, volumes are something we talk about a lot, but for 2025 I would also like to mention that it is the first time in the bank’s long history that we have issued NIB Environmental Bonds in all member country currencies. So in addition to DKK, EUR, NOK and SEK denominated NEBs, we are now proud to have added the smallest of them, in the form of a seven-year Icelandic Kronor bond. This is a comeback to the island after 17 years,” said Hellerup.
Another highlight one could characterize as” leading the way by innovation”: NIB became the first Supranational to issue a Sustainability-Linked Loan financing Bond: the SEK 1.75 billion and five-year bond is issued under the new framework for SLLBs, which also has a second opinion from S&P Global Rating.
“It is all about bridging transition financing from the lending side into the bond markets,” said Angela Brusas, Director, Funding and Investor Relations.
“The final highlight of the year is the Global Capital magazine award for the most impressive funding team with a budget of less than EUR 10bn. The team received this award during the yearly get together of the SSA market community just before summer. The voting is done by market participants and for a small issuer this is a nice recognition from the industry and something to be proud of,” Hellerup said.